


These stars shine for you

by littleramblings



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Existentialism, M/M, Religion, Tarsus IV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 20:00:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7697620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleramblings/pseuds/littleramblings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock sees James T. Kirk and sees a man who deserves every bit of praise and celebration he has rightfully earned. Jim sees Spock and thinks if there is a God, how cruel it must be to cause someone so bright to lose so much</p>
            </blockquote>





	These stars shine for you

**Author's Note:**

> I'm watching TOS and got inspired by one very simple line in the first series: "above all else, a God needs compassion". Also contains minor (I hope) bastardisation of the laws of physics.

Captain James T. Kirk was not a devout man. Not really, anyway. He’d seen enough of space to know that if there was something, someone, out there, they didn’t want to be found. After the second alien contact, Terran culture stopped being so heavily influenced by religion – Jim remembered learning about it in school, how almost overnight people stopped going to church, to mosque, to synagogues and temples. It had been a bit of a slap around the face for some, to learn that mankind were not special. That their existence as a species was as influential on the universe as a single grain of sand is to the motion of the tide. Jim didn’t see what the big deal was, back then. He listened, took notes, and wrote the mandatory paper on The Decline of Organised Religion, 2092-Present. Not once did he wonder why.

 

No, Jim was not a devout man, but nobody could prove to him the existence (or lack thereof) of a divine being, so he sat on the metaphorical fence and went to classes and soaked up information like a sponge. He was smart, special, _gifted._ The teachers loved him and the kids loved to beat the crap out of him.

 

And then Tarsus happened.

. . .

_A great opportunity,_ Frank had called it. A three month academic placement, taught by some of the most innovative minds of the 23rd century. And oh how Jim had believed him, believed in his professors and the curriculum, in the simple fact that what he was learning would someday be used for something good. He believed it all, until he didn’t. Until the issue with the replicators became an issue with the crops, and all the tech and gadgets that had allowed him to contact Earth were taken away, and he and 3,999 others were called to the town hall. Until –

 

Until.

 

. . .

 

The thing about calling a slaughter a compromise is the fact that it doesn’t change what it really is. And Jim knew that a Starfleet officer calling him brave did not change the fact that he was a coward who ran, six kids with wide eyes and paper thin skin following after him.

 

. . .

 

“Above all else, a God needs compassion.”

 

. . .

 

To dictate ones actions dependent upon an archaic structure of moral superiority is illogical. Spock had studied Terran culture in great depth, old and new. He knew that to place hope in something that cannot be proven was both unhelpful and irrational. And yet at night he would lay in the sand beside Amanda, staring at the stars, remembering tales of Christmas and Eid and wonder if maybe his mother’s stories held some aspect of truth.

 

He was Vulcan, and to linger on such thoughts was entirely impractical.

 

And _yet…_

. . .

 

When an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object, the infinite amount of mass and energy would not allow their velocity to change. They simply pass through each other. Spock sees James T. Kirk and sees a man who deserves every bit of praise and celebration he has rightfully earned. Jim sees Spock and thinks if there is a God, how cruel it must be to cause someone so bright to lose so much.

 

There is a concept which states that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Jim sleeps soundly beside Spock, face half shadowed by the artificial light which illuminates their shared quarters. Spock strokes one finger lightly across Jim’s cheek, an illogical gesture of affection, and knows that come Hell or high water, they will not be separated again.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written for Star Trek before, so let me know what you think either in the comments below, or on tumblr. I'm sirenramblings on there.


End file.
